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Friday, 25 April 2014

‘I climbed right up to here’ or Risk and Challenge in a Forest School

Risk taking
is widely understood to be a natural part of a child’s development. Adults
who work with children are moving on from thinking of risk only in the context
of ‘the risk assessment’ which decides those things are too dangerous to allow. But are rather looking at risk from a child’s point of
view, making an analysis of the risks and the benefits to create a Risk Benefit Analysis (RBA). Risks and risk taking is even better understood when re-framed as challenges.
Providing realistic challenges for children and allowing them to work through
the challenges they set themselves supports their development, actively engages
them and helps them better understand themselves and each other.

I am always
fascinated to watch groups of children climbing trees. I remember years ago working with a
little girl who was very risk averse, very challenge averse. She was part of a group of voracious tree
climbers and she would watch them, anxiously reporting to the adults just how
high the others were climbing. One day she stood on the lowest branch and,
reaching up, tied a string on the trunk. Each week she would climb up and touch
that string, until one day she felt ready to reach higher. She stood on a
different branch and moved the string further up the trunk.

Recently I
went out with a Forest School group who had been coming to the woods since the
previous summer. They still climbed to the same height limits that we had set together months previously. But there was a change in the amount of support
they required from the adults present. It had started with our active support
and encouragement when they wanted to climb, more often than not we would talk
them down when they climbed out of their comfort zone. This moved on to them
needing our presence nearby, just in case, to the point where now they were
climbing and moving around with ease. One of their classmates, who had not
previously been out to the woods with us, joined in the tree climbing. Within
moments had climbed higher, on different trees in a very different way,
shinning up the trunk rather than climbing branch to branch, wedging himself
comfortably, literally out on a limb.

Children’s responses to
risk taking are as diverse as the children themselves. Douglas
& Wildavsky (1982) have suggested that there are four kinds of people when
it comes to managing risk: Hierarchists, egalitarians, individualists and
fatalists. Mark Gladwin (2005)1 linked these different types of risk
takers to the observations he made of children at play. You may recognise these
types of risk takers in the children you know and work with.

Hierachists are those people who will naturally
follow the rules, who deal with risk by following the procedures. If these
procedures stress safety above all then these people are unlikely to find ways
to push themselves out of the comfort zone. These are the children that look to
you for permission before testing themselves and conform to set parameters, like
the little girl and her string.

Egalitarians have strong group identification
and emphasise group solidarity at the expense of official rules. These children, like the group I was watching climb trees had developed a group norm. They had
set parameters for themselves as a group and no one person in that group was
likely to engage in risk taking behaviour that didn’t conform.

Individualists are independent-minded and able to
defy official rules and group pressures to make their own decisions on risk
management. Like the boy who joined the
tree climbing group but went out on a limb, individualist children are the
likeliest to engage in risk-taking of the kind described by Hughes (2001) as
“deep play”.

Fatalists are those people who submit
passively to external control without commitment to group norms or solidarity
and take no steps to either avoid risk or manage it. These children are the hardest to predict how
they will respond to a risky situation. I wonder if their response to risk is
borne out of inexperience in risky situations. Sue Palmer (Toxic Childhood 2006)says “All real children’s play involves an element of risk, and the more real
play children are allowed the better they become at analyzing and managing
those risks. If, on the other hand, adults try to eliminate risk from their
lives they’re likely to grow up either unduly reckless or hopelessly timid.”

By observing
the children we work with and understanding their approach, our response to
their risk taking can become more informed. The risks we all take as humans
take are not only physical but are social and emotional. Forest School gives lots of opportunities for risk
taking and challenge. For some children just being in woodland, especially if
it this is an unfamiliar environment, is an emotional challenge. The
opportunity to climb, move tree trunks, run on rough terrain etc provides
endless physical challenges. Using tools and being around fire provides
opportunity for physical and emotional challenges for children. Being in a
group without the structure of a classroom and having to communicate with
others, talking with a partner when using a saw to cut wood provides
social, physical and emotional challenges. When someone overcomes a challenge, be
it one that is set by ourselves or by others and we are given chance to reflect
on how we feel, we offer the opportunity to build those critical qualities of self
worth and resilience.

It is too
easy under the guise of health and safety to try and remove the risks and
therefore take away any challenge in the activity or environment for the children
and it is worth noting that the child’s need for having a challenge, if not
met, will often express itself in other ways including what we call ‘challenging behaviour’.
The importance of a Forest school activity is in providing children the
opportunity to take risks and build their self-confidence.

“Most
psychiatrists agree that mental health in adulthood springs from a successful
weaning of the child from its parents, an ability to deal with the outside world
confidently, without overdue dependence on adults. And making good
relationships can only come with practice. Through unstructured play with
others, children can work through their emotions and discover their identity.

If they are never free from adult supervision,
they cannot internalise a parental voice or find a way of setting their own
boundaries. They have no chance to do mildly dangerous things and find out how
risks should be judged. They cannot chart their own course through the minor
hazards of everyday life. Nor can they explore the real bonds of friendship and
loyalty that are formed through common adventures with others their own age.”

(Sieghart, M. A. in the Times, 5 th August
1995)

References:

1 Playwords
(Summer 2005 - Issue 26)

*This post, written by Lily, was originally published on Outdoor Play and Learning.com in March 2011 and is republished here with their kind permission.